Collins Returns With More Than Just Football in Mind
By Steve Irvine
BIRMINGHAM, ALABAMA - April 15, 2026
The anxiety that Marquise Collins faced when he stepped back on the Legacy Pavilion practice field on the opening day of UAB’s spring football practice never fully melted away.
Sure, it’s been chipped away slowly. Every time he went to the ground, he got right back up. That’s a win. Every time he made a hard cut, the knees that were surgically repaired three different times held up. That’s another win. Every time he looked to accelerate or spun away from a defender it came naturally. When he was time to create contact to get an extra yard he’s lowered his pads. It felt like the good old times on the football field.
Then it came time for the team’s first full-scale scrimmage of the spring.
“If I'm being honest, (the apprehension) never quite fully went away,” the 5-foot-9, 195-pound Collins said. “And I still deal with some of it to a small extent. But after the (first) scrimmage, I was like ‘OK, I done hit the ground, I went full speed, I know that this is something I can do. I can make a lot of plays for this team this season.’”
Danny Mitchell, who shares the running back coaching duties with Hindley Brigham, smiles and nods when he hears this.
“What his story is, is a story of resilience and that story of resilience isn't done,” Mitchell said. “It's every day for him and he knows that. He'll admit that. It's an everyday battle for him. But I think for anyone, this is what this game's about. You don't know when it could end or not. The kid, every time he steps between the lines, you see him today, I mean, he is running with a purpose. He will run through you. That's how you play the game, man. If you're designed how a football player is supposed to play the game, that's how you're supposed to play it.”
To understand Collins football journey you must start during his childhood in College Station, Texas.
“I don't think I paid for a little league team after my first year playing,” Collins said. “People offered me to come play for free as a kid. Running back is a position I always played my whole life. I've always been pretty dominant in it, I would like to say.”
That carried over to his first three varsity seasons at College Station High when he had 3,877 rushing yards, 4,582 all-purpose yards and 64 touchdowns. As a junior, he rushed for 2,826 yards and 39 touchdowns to lead his team to 15 consecutive wins and a spot in the Texas 5A Division I state championship game. In the six playoff games alone, he accounted for more than 1,200 all-purpose yards and 19 touchdowns. Collins had a 71-yard touchdown run late in the fourth quarter to tie the state championship game against Katy Paetow High but College Station lost the game by a field goal in overtime.
“I remember watching him in high school because he was a big-time recruit,” said UAB offensive guard Calib Perez, who is from Pearland, Texas and was a teammate of Collins at Duke. “He rushed for like over 2,000 yards in 2021. So I knew about him. I used to watch him on Fox whenever I’d come home for breaks.”
Things changed drastically just before his senior season. Collins tore up the ACL in his left knee while performing a non-contact drill in practice. Gone was the dream of leading his team back to the state championship game and winning it this time. Gone were his hopes of impressing college scouts with one more season. Most importantly, football itself was gone.
“It's probably like the lowest I've been because I'd never been without football,” Collins said. “This is something I've done since I was the age of four years old. Since I could run, I played football just with my family, my cousins, on teams. It’s something I've always done. It put me in a place where I was at an identity crisis. I didn't know myself. I felt like I didn't know myself outside of the sport.”
There was more to it for Collins.
“What a lot of people don't know, my senior year, my daughter was on the way,” Collins said. “My daughter was born the next year, 2023, on March 22nd. I was navigating how to get ready to become a father and deal with my injuries all at the same time. It was a lot of pressure on me my senior year. It made me figure it out. You know, when you become a parent, you got no choice but to figure it out. I was 17 years old. So it made me grow up and I had to move a little faster than my peers did.”
Collins still wasn’t fully healthy when he arrived at Duke the following summer. Admittedly, he had not handled rehab properly and there was scar tissue buildup. He had to have a left knee scope after arriving at Duke and wasn’t ready to play until the season had begun. He got into two games – rushing once for 15 yards – but ultimately took a redshirt that season and looked to compete for a starting job the following spring. Once again, though, a knee injury during contact drill in spring practice, this one on his right knee, ended his season before it began.
At that point, he had a decision to make about football. Was it worth continuing a sport that had been ripped away from him too many times?
“How I broke it down to myself is like, I've been through too much to just give up and walk away from it,” Collins said. “You know what I'm saying? I'd rather die on that hill. You don't have to tell me I can never play again. My body's going to have to tell me this something I can't do. This is something I really love. And when people say they'll really die for a sport, that's something I show every day. That's something I'm willing to do.”
He sat out the 2024 season and decided to enter the transfer portal in the spring of 2025. Perez, who had become close with Collins at Duke when both were rehabbing knee injuries, saw he was in the portal and shared his opinion on Collins with the UAB coaches.
“Whenever his name came available for us, I was like ‘Dude, he's a must-have,” Perez said.
The UAB coaches reached out to Collins, who was preparing to pack up his belongings and drive from North Carolina to his home in Texas. The route just happened to bring him through Birmingham so he stopped in for a visit. Both sides were quickly sold on the opportunity.
“It was actually late because that’s when there was a late portal,” Mitchell said. “It was a late process. I remember seeing he was in portal. One of the things was obviously the injury thing. When I first met Marquise, you can tell that he has the ‘It’ factor. I guess that's the best way to put it. So, man, for him to come in and us believe, he was still injured. It took him some time to even be cleared to practice. He only started practicing middle of fall last year. He was a great fit right into the room. Then obviously, he's really our (scholarship) veteran returner from last year. That part alone has been such a huge strength for this room.”
Collins has shown this spring that he’s ready to compete for playing time in a loaded running back room that includes transfer portal additions Rod Robinson, Bam McReynolds and Ja’Vin Simpkins. Just as importantly, he’s stepped up to not only taking a leadership role in the room but also throughout the entire program. Mitchell said Collins and Robinson recently held a barbecue for the entire team to help in the bonding process.
It’s a testament to Collins that he has put himself in this position.
“You know, I've had a lot of surgeries, but the one thing that me and him can relate to, I've been in his shoes, and I've done the other side of his shoes, too,” Perez said. “You do all this work, and it finally pays off, just getting the opportunity. People say injuries, they suck, but honestly, for me and him, one of the best things that happened to us is it got us to this position. It makes us take a step back, get a lot smarter than before. You open your eyes to different things that you don't notice before. You start helping out others because at that point, you can just be supportive. But what you put in is what you're going to get back. With being hurt and still working hard, you're going to get in what you put out. So that's why you're seeing him ball out this spring because the work he's actually put in.”